Visit of the construction site of Maxime Sorel’s future racing boat

A giant hangar located on the port of Concarneau (Finistère). Inside, under François Gabart’s impressive Ultim trimaran, two long black half-hulls are placed. These are the two main parts that will make up the new boat VandB-Monbana-Mayenne by Maxime Sorel. For now, it looks more like a spaceship or a Batman car than a racing boat. But the skipper of Cancale savors: “it’s great to be able to see the boat, to be able to touch it because we’ve worked a lot for months on the plans. I begin to see the work zones, the living zones that there will be. I manage to project myself and see how I’m going to circulate in this boat.“

Maxime Sorel, 10th in the last Vendée Globe then gives an update on the site: “the hull and deck were delivered in November. In the ‘hull’ part, we put the skeleton of the boat, the whole structure, all the bulkheads that will allow the rigidity of this hull. There, it is almost the end of this part of the construction site. In a month, we will deck the boat, that is to say, we will come and put the ‘roof’ of the boat. The bridge will be grafted to this hull.“

One of the following stages will be that of the painting, the dressing of the hull of the boat: “it is a matter that we take very seriously. There will be a magnificent decoration with this dragon. The hull will be the dragon of the boat. To carry out the decoration, it has been estimated that the time will be two and a half times that usual for a racing boat. Artists will come to paint this famous dragon.“

A one and a half month painting project before the launch of the VandB-Monbana-Mayenne scheduled for June. Maxime Sorel will only have a few weeks to get to grips with his new mount before setting off for the Route du Rhum in November.